Last Thursday the Vashon Pirates cross country team hosted the Life Christian Eagles and the Orting Cardinals at a meet on Vashon’s 5K course, which finishes at the high school stadium.

The afternoon started with the 3K middle school race.

Jeffrey Parrish started his running career off with a first-place victory in 11:10. He and Life Christian’s Tyler Miller went neck and neck for most of the race before Jeffrey pulled away with just over 800 meters to go.

Eva Cyra and Camryn Kim-Murphy finished fourth and fifth for the middle school girls.

Jasper Heckman from Orting won the 5K varsity boys race in 18:01. Vashon’s Ryan Krug took home the fifth-place ribbon with a time of 20:08.

Orting won the overall boys meet with 16 points, and the Pirates finished with 41 points.

Elisha Pablow from Orting won the girls varsity race in 21:26, and Maddi Groen and Peri Roberts took fourth and fifth place in the race. Orting won the girls meet with 19 points. Life Christian scored 90 points and Vashon had 49 points.

Last Saturday the Pirates headed to the Fort Steilacoom Invitational, where schools representing all divisions were present. Both the boys and girls teams along with the middle school runners set a number of personal best times.

Tomorrow the team will take on several schools at a 4 p.m. meet at Lincoln Park.

— Kevin Ross is a cross country coach at Vashon High School.